Is your life on track?

We approximately have a life span of approx. 25,000 days in which we are hoping to achieve something significant and worthwhile. At some points in this journey we get a sense that we are either moving towards a direction that feels significant and worthwhile or a direction that seems antithetical to our growth and development. Although we cannot be expected to make micro-adjustments all the time along this journey, we need to be aware of times when we are going in the complete opposite direction to where we potentially have the maximum probability of achieving our potential.

One might ask - why bother? Well if we are not on track sometime in the near future the vehicle in the form of our body will crack up and crumble leaving us incapacitated to move towards our life goals. Instead of approaching the issue from the perspective of what does life on track look like, I am approaching it from the point of view that what does a life that IS NOT on track look like. If you have these symptoms you need to start relooking at some things or all the things that you are doing or believing in your life and for each one of us that may be different.

If we are able to see the markers that tell us that we are ON track and/or we are able to see the markers that tell us we are OFF track, we can then look for alternatives and make the necessary changes to our trajectory. The key markers that I have identified in my own life will be discussed in the next few articles and in this article I will discuss the overall health and wellbeing as a key marker.

Marker 1: Overall health of the physical body (Ours and those closest to us)

At the age of 45, I had a health condition which put me out of action for over 2 years. In the physical world, my ill-health was potentially treatable through medications and surgery. I, however, went down the path to understand what my body was telling me and listened deeply. What I heard was that I was not honouring my needs and not articulating my needs. I was living primarily for others and that too not full-heartedly. After going through a painful process of being there for myself, I am happy that I am now on the path to self-healing. I am using supportive remedies such as Ayurveda and yoga but without changing the basic direction of my life towards honouring myself, these supportive remedies would have been unable to take the whole burden of healing.

I wish however that I had realized earlier of the things that needed change and when I did not do those changes, the problem moved from the emotional plane into the physical body and affected my health. Almost all the chronic and severe illnesses like cancer, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, COPD, PCOD, heart disease, prostate enlargement, kidney malfunction, digestive issues such as constipation, all have a connection to our emotional and psychic well-being. If we are unwell at the emotional and psychical level it is only a matter of time that this malaise will manifest at the physical plane and emerge as one or more of symptoms of a chronic illness. Unfortunately, we end up shooting the messenger by subscribing to suppressive allopathic treatments ignoring the emotional and psychical malaise (which is actually the root of the problem).

If our life is not on track our bodies will give us signals in three stages which escalate in terms of severity and degree of discomfort.

We have three escalating stages where our bodies and our health warns us that our life is not on track.

STAGE 1: Where we listen to the early warning signals and do the necessary work by working on our emotional and psychical domains

STAGE 2:  Where we listen and act upon only after we are affected by a physical ailment which is serious and requires attention.

STAGE 3: We don’t listen at all and work only to alleviate the physical suffering being oblivious of the deeper emotional and/ or psychical reasons.

What are the possible symptoms or signals that we receive at STAGE 1? 

As stage 1 is the stage where the illness is not deeply entrenched the signals are related to things that are supposed to happen in an autonomic way.

1. Sleep may be affected. Either you feel very sleepy or you don’t sleep at all.

2. Digestion may be affected. Either you are constipated or you feel bloated and have signs of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

3. Aches and pains start manifesting. Persistent headaches, back aches, pains in the legs and hips.

4. You start falling ill more frequently with bouts of flu, viral, fevers and other such illnesses indicating a compromised immune system.

5. If you are a woman, then your menstrual cycle may get irregular. Heavy at time, with more cramping and with a higher than normal PMS.

What are the possible symptoms or signals that we receive at STAGE 2?

Stage 2 manifests when Stage 1 symptoms have been silenced or suppressed using antibiotics, pain-killers and / or other palliatives like alcohol, nicotine, high sugar foods and caffeine. 

The body starts feeling the effects of a higher level of cortisol and leads to what is known as Adrenal fatigue. In addition to Stage 1 symptoms getting more pronounced and persistent other things to start cropping up.

1. Seasonal variations start impacting more. Sinusitis is a common complaint.

2. Lethargy and lack of energy start becoming the norm. You can’t start your day without caffeine or nicotine or both.

3. Breathing starts getting affected. Shallow breathing leads to low oxygen and exacerbates lethargy and feeling of listlessness.

4. Sugar cravings start becoming more acute.

5. Headaches start tending towards migraine

6. Type 2 diabetes starts showing up in reports. Fasting sugar and Post-Prandial sugar become elevated. Insulin levels also remain high leading to PCOD in women and diabesity (diabetes and obesity) in men and women.

7. Hypertension becomes pronounced.

What are the possible symptoms or signals that we receive at STAGE 3? 

Stage 3 means we have disregarded the warning signals of Stage 1 and Stage 2 and we are faced with pronouncements like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, kidney failure, asthma, fatty liver syndrome, IBS, COPD, PCOD.

We started this article asking if our life is on track and we ended up with a potential list of physical ailments that are being seen across a huge section of society irrespective of age, wealth and educational background. So why have we reached here and why are we not able to see the connection between our life being on track and the physical ailments that are impacting us. It is so easy to blame it on stress but why should it be so stressful to live as humans. Do fishes get stressed when they are swimming or do birds get stressed when they are flying? So why are we getting stressed just by living our life? Why are we waiting for some organ system to breakdown before we start looking for answers? Why do we need a heart attack or a stroke or endometriosis or cancer to realise that something in our life is OFF? That we are not being true to ourselves? That we may not be having boundaries, that we may be giving too much of ourselves?

Some of us maybe lucky to find ourselves not having any symptoms of physical ailments and a question worth checking is whether our partners (husbands/ wives) are having those symptoms? A possibility worth exploring for these “healthy” people is “maybe” their good health is at the cost of someone close to them losing their own health.

We will explore other markers in subsequent posts which are slightly more difficult to find and pin-point but we will explore them nonetheless.

I do pray that we see our health as a continuum between mind and body with our mental health impacting our body and our physical health impacting our mind. Taking care of both consciously is the way to well-being. So, start getting your life back on track. Ask fundamental questions. Look for persistent patterns. Hire a life coach. Have regular sessions with a therapist. Journal more often. Meditate if possible and most importantly listen to your inner world for the message it sends. Don’t wait for the problem to manifest at the physical level. Wake up and expect overall well-being as the norm and not the exception.